


Until I See You Again

by andysbrandy



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, enjoy, someone please tell me why my gay ass is writing sappy heterosexual love stories at 2 am, this'll probably only be about 3 really long chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:25:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4308582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andysbrandy/pseuds/andysbrandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Children in Thedas are taught to hate and fear mages, but it's hard to share that mindset when you've grown up alongside them, and even harder when you're in love with one</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until I See You Again

The first time Emery sees her, they're 5, on a playdate with her and her twin brother in the Hawke family's backyard while a bored eight year old looks on.

Carver is fun, and likes to play swords, but he's too loud and pouts when he loses. Bethany is nicer, softer, not good at hitting things, but good at dodging and better at running.

Emery plays with the twins often; his mom and theirs like to have tea in the afternoons and talk about recipes, and frilly dresses and the weather.

It's a routine, for Emery, Bethany and Carver Hawke are as much part of his life as his real siblings.

They played rescue the princess (with a doll, since Bethany wouldn't stand still), slay the dragon and conquer Orlais, with stick swords and bare feet and torn muddy clothing that made mothers mad.

Marian played too sometimes, but she was bigger and stronger and could already pick up both her siblings at the same time, so they would gang up on her, chasing her through the yard with their fearsome swords until she climbed a tree they could not yet reach and hailed chunks of tree bark down onto their heads with surprising accuracy. 

The first strange thing came when Emery turned 7. Marian wasn't allowed to play with the anymore, her dad said she was getting too big, but Emery knew it was something else. And after a little over a year had passed, he let her play again. But now she was older and played cards and racing games with the teenagers in the town square, and learned to shoot a bow and wield a knife from a shady red haired chantry sister. 

Bethany grew quicker than Carver and Emery, and they hated it. She held acorns over their head and giggled when they leapt to grab it. He was 8 when that giggle made his heart flutter for the first time.

He was ten when Malcolm did the same thing to the twins as he'd done to Marian. They hardly left the house at all after their birthday, and a year passed where they barely played at all, and only under their father’s watchful eye.

When the year is up, Carver returns to normal as Marian did, they join the older kids in the square, too old to play pretend anymore. But Bethany stays inside, stays hidden. She smiles and waves when they pass each other on the street, clutching her father’s hand with bags under her eyes. He asks Carver what's wrong but Carver won't tell him, won't talk about his family at all. 

The next time they talk, they're twelve. It's the dead of night and she knocks on his window and gestures for him to come outside. He doesn't think, doesn't ask why, just pulls on boots and sneaks out the front door.

"I have to show you something,” she whispers, and he follows her lead without question. She takes his hand as they walk, as she's done a hundred times before. But now they're alone, and dark and it's been over a _year since he been with Bethany. Her hair had gotten longer, and she'd gotten taller. But she'd changed in quieter ways too. She was older of course, but her eyes looked sad and she slouched when she walked now, like she was trying to hide._

_Bethany had been leading him to the lake in the dark, and the sure footed way she navigated the twisting path meant she'd snuck down here more than once in the dead of night._

_She pulls them under the dock, and the moons reflection in the water lets Emery see her twisting her toe in the mud like she did when she got nervous._

_"Daddy says I'm not supposed to tell you, not supposed to tell anyone, but especially you." She says, and looks at the ground._

_"Tell me what?" Emery asks, taking a step forward._

_She takes his hand again and looks him in the eyes, like she's judging him worthy or not of her secret._

_"I'll show you" she whispers, and faces the lake._

_Bethany takes a breath, and pushes her hands out from her sides. For a moment, nothing happens._

_And then the lake starts freezing._

_The ice crackles and hisses as it suddenly replaces the water, and Emery can't stop staring at the midsummer lake turning to ice, even when Bethany pulls her hands away. The ice stops spreading, and starts melting before Emery can look at her again, eyes full of wonderment and curiosity._

_"You have magic" he gapes._

_"As does my father." She tells him, and takes a pause. "You're brother is a Templar."_

_Emery thinks of his oldest brother, who refused to be a farmer and wanted to serve the maker but was too dull to be a priest. He'd become a Templar because he wanted to help his family, and serve his country without fighting a war for it._

_Emery had never really thought about what it was the Templars actually did, what his own brother would do if he found out about the little girl and her father if he found out about them._

_"I won't tell anyone, not ever I swear."_

_She smiles and kisses him on the cheek, and his heart flutters again._

_"Thank you."_

_Her father trains her most nights, in the early morning hours when no one is awake, at the quiet docks where no one lives and they can see people coming a mile away._

_But some nights, Malcolm needs to go into town overnight, and Bethany will run the Emery's house and drag him out of bed to the docks, or to walk through the nearby forest, where they'd been forbidden to go as children but now he could handle a sword and she could shoot fire out of her palms and the child-eating wolf men from their mothers stories no longer worried them. But sometimes, they just walked out into his family's barn, climb into the hayloft, and make up tales to tell each other._

_Three years past like this, sneaking around and meeting in hidden locations like secret lovers, until one day, that's what they became._

_They were fifteen, and everything was changing. Bethany's father was sick, deathly sick, from a thing he could not heal, and Emery's father had died and left his mother with seven kids and a failing farm. Templars made no smaller amount of money to but it couldn't support them all, and his oldest sister had joined the army to help more, and died in a battle. He was the next oldest, and his mother refused to let him join the army. She was forcing him to become a Templar._

_Bethany didn't know this, and Emery didn't want to tell her, not yet, well not ever, but that wasn't an option._

_They snuck out like any other night, and went to the barn. Bethany had been able to sneak out nearly every night since Malcolm had gotten sick, and Emery was more than happy to spend tired groggy days plowing the fields and sword training if Bethany needed a shoulder to cry on at night._

_She wasn't looking for that sort of comfort tonight, they were older, Bethany was cinching at the waist and shaping out her shirts, and Emery had muscles from training and farming and hair starting to pop up everywhere his pimples weren't._

_She led him into his barn, and into the hayloft where they'd spent countless hours hiding from the real world in their own._

_She'd brought her staff, as she brought it every time she left home at night now, and it's crystal let off a dim blue blow that let them see just enough to know what was where. It started with kissing, slow and patient. They were avoiding the world; they wanted to drag it on forever. It was the first time for the both of them, clumsy and scared and nervous kids, undoing buttons and laces with shaking hands, that stopped when they touched each other. Nerves turned to curiosity, which turned to wonder as they explored the others' body, until night turned to dawn turned to day and they woke up tangled in each other's limbs and smelling vaguely of hay and sweat._

_They were both late; both would be in trouble for sneaking out when they finally did get home, but neither one cared._

_Bethany untangled herself first, and began picking up and putting on scattered articles of clothing over the loft. Light streamed in through cracked planks in the wall and Emery was reminded just how _beautiful she was.__

__She walked back over to him and pecked him on the lips. When she pulled away she smiled and promised; "I'll be back tonight."_ _

__But Emery would never know if she did._ _

__When he finally climbed out of hayloft and left the barn, he knew something was wrong. His yard was empty, and two unfamiliar horses were tied to posts outside his front door._ _

__He ran inside the house, terrified something had happened, someone had died. But his mother and younger siblings were there, and so were two extras._ _

__"Emery!" His mother called, but Emery didn't answer. He was preoccupied, staring at the solemn silver men looking out of place in his simple hut wearing shining armor and plumes._ _

__"Love, I know you were apprehensive of the Templars, so I thought it best if they came themselves-"_ _

__"We have no need for recruiting." The taller of the two cut her off. "You made it clear in your letter that were to pick up the boy, anything less is a waste of chantry time and resources and you will receive a heavy fine."_ _

__Emery knew he would have to leave soon, if not the Templars then the army. But it was always a problem for another day, now they were with no warning and he had to go. His mother had taken away any choice he'd ever had, they couldn't afford a fine and she knew that. He would have to become the very thing Bethany had taught him to hate._ _

__"I'll go." Emery tells them; because there's nothing else he can say. "Just, give me a few minutes."_ _

__"You have ten minutes to gather your things and say goodbye." The Templar says._ _

__Packing takes a matter of seconds, but that's not what he wanted to do. He steals the notebook his father used to keep track of money, and tears out a page. Writing is slow, he wished he could say goodbye face to face, but that would mean seeing her face when he told her, and Emery didn't think he would be able to take that._ _

'I am so sorry love' _the letter reads. He'd never called her love before, not out loud, but he wished he had, and this was his last chance. 'I swear to you, I never had a say in my fate, and I will never give up your secrets. I don't know if I'll ever see you again, but I won't forget you, I'll use this to make things better for your people, I promise.'_

__He signed he letter with the name he'd used in their secret world, and wrapped it in one of his sister’s scarves. He ran outside to the barn and put the letter in the hayloft. It was the first place she would go, and the last place his mother would._ _

__When he snuck back in, it was time to go. Time to leave everything he'd ever known and betray his closest friend so his siblings could eat at night. They both hugged him tight and he climbed on the back of a warhorse. Emery didn't stop looking back until Lothering was nothing but a glowing dot on the horizon._ _

**Author's Note:**

> haha i don't know why i'm posting this fic, no one wants to read a story with barely any canon characters. If you're still here i love you and i'll love you even more if you tell me what you thought 
> 
> if you're reading my other multi-chapter fic don't worry this ones almost done im just cleaning up and posting, it wont slow down osftsb


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